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Ancient Qâêr
=Brief Overview= Qâêr is a VSO structured language with most of the focus and inflections around the verb with a few particles as well. Qâêr is the native language of the people of the same name. It was spoken on the planet of Sâfaolehracópah. Presently however it is only spoken in the Râlôrin Province, albeit a watered down and slighty evolved version of the language, and this province is located on the continent Hehrânniâ. The traditional Qâêr was also spoken on the continents Âtínrelmá, Fáriâ, Fâern, Fêlabôrin and Falerân however then afterwards through magical tampering the Qâêr were rendered extinct and their language was carried on only by the Râlôrin who migrated to Hehrânniâ. The other races, namely the Hwâfin, Êlfârin, Cîben, Âldârin, Skafânok, Ôbâdem, Erdâl, and Harâm now speak, though heavily evolved, their own advanced dialects all descended from the original langauge of Qâêr. =Basic Grammar= 'Phonology' Single Letters Dipthongs : Vowels Phonotactics 'Consonants' Consonant Rules Q''' & '''Hw are stand alone consonants, as in only vowels can be placed either side of them. The rules with consonants are as follows; Nasals, Approximants and Stops can be first but not Fricatives. Fricatives only come before Stops, but before and after Approximants and never with Nasals. Nasals however can come before Stops and after Approximants. Aprroximants can also come before stops but this is rare. Consonant Groupings Allowed Before Vowels;' fr'-, st-, dh-,' nj'-, nr- (i.e syllables consisting of these consonant groups followed by a vowel, possibly with consonnts after the vowel and this is all pronounced as one syllable) After Vowels; -'nt', -'nd', -'mb', -'rm', -'rn', -'rs', -'rl', -'ld', -'lt', -'lf', -'dh', -'lm', -'ln' (i.e syllables with these consist of a vowel followed by these consonant groups which is pronounced all as one syllable) Other Groupings that are Spoken Seperately and Only come After a Vowel; -'ft', -'lf', -'lm', -'ln', -'ml', -'nl', -'mp', -'mr', -'nr', -'nm', -'sp' (i.e the syllable ends with the first consonant in these groupings even though they are placed together and they are not spoken as one syllable, except for the ones which also appear in the above groups in which case it depends on the word) All other consonant groupings do not, and are not allowed therefore cannot, appear in Qâêr. Syllable and Stress Syllable Structure - ©© V ©© The rule for stress placement in Qâêr is that the accentuated vowel in the word is always stressed however there are strict rules regarding stress placement which are as follows. In words two syllables long the second syllable is always stressed regardless of which syllable has the accentuated vowel. In regrds to words with three or more syllables; in a three syllable word the second syllable is alwys stressed, however when the word is lengthened wither by affixes or other words this sress pattern changes. In words with four syllables the thrid syllable is always stressed along with the first syllable if it is accxentuated, if not then only the third syllable is stressed. In relation to words with five or six syllables then second and fifth syllable is stressed unless the fourth or sixth syllable is accentuated then stress moves there. In the rare case where the fourth, fifth and sixth syllable are accentuted then only the second and fifth syllable are stressed, it is only when the fifht syllable is unaccentuated that the stress swaps either to the fourth or fifth. In any other words longer than five and six syllables this five and six syllable word rules apply. Noun, Verb and Adjective Structure Nouns Structure Verbs Structure Adjective Structure In relation to the Adjective, adjectives cannot be inflected with comparitive and the "More" prefix at the same time. Aspect and Tempus The Imperfective 2 Aspect here seen in the table is the Conative Imperfect Aspect and is further explained in the Aspect Section. Correct Aspect/Tense Usage Imperfective and Perfective Aspect Ongoing States are always inflected in Imperfective Aspect as well as Habitual actions, not in Perfective which is how English works. Example; He '''raised' his sword and struck the enemy.'' Here both verbs are in Perfective which would be correct in English. Example in Qâêr; He '''was raising' his sword and striking the enemy.'' Imperfective is used also in situations where the action is Habitual and also used to describe a background situation, Example; I used to walk to school every day.(Habitual Imperfective) '''vs'. I walked to school every day. (Perfective)'' Example; The rain was beating down. (Imperfective) '''vs'. The rain beat down. (Perfective)'' : Imperfective is always used in this cases as this is the proper grammatical way in Qâêr and to use Perfective in this context is wrong. Perfective is used to refer to an action viewed as a whole, and it is equivalent to the aspectual component of past-perfective tenses variously called "aorist", "preterite", and "simple past". Example of Perfective; He raised his sword and struck the enemy. 'Using The Conative Imperfect' The Imperfective aspect also adds the idea of To-Try-To-Do-Something which is known as Conative Imperfect. This means that the same verb, either in the Conative Imperfect or Perfective aspect is used to convey verbs such as Look and''' See', '''Search' and Find and e.c.t where the Perfective one is See or Find and the verb inflecfted in Conative Imperfect becomes Look or Search and so on. The difference between these two actions, the verb and the same verb when it is inflected, is that one (Perfective) conveys the success of the action (Find) and the other verb is trying to succcessfully complete the action however success is not always clear, attained or come to 100% completion. Example in Greek; `ekouomen - "We Listened" vs. `ekousamen - "We Heard" In this case there will be for example one verb for 'to hear' 'and then when inflected with the Imperfective 2 affix the verb becomes ''to listen'. General Usage of Aspects In general conversation the Perfect aspect is used unlike English which uses Perfective. The perfect aspect such as; I had/have/will have Gone. The Imperfective aspect is used in ongoing actions and habitual actions (see above). The Conative Imperfect apect is used in respective to Perfective Aspect to convey "Trying Verbs". The Perfective aspect is used written and historical documents. The Inceptive aspect is used for the start or beginning of actions or for actions that are going to begin or had begun in a certain time reference. : Example; I am beginning to go, I was beginning to go, I will be beginning to go. The Continuative aspect is used when the action is still going on or being carried through, also for actiosn thet were still in action and actions that will still be going on in the future. : Example; I am still eating, I was still eating, I will be still eating The Terminative aspect is used when the action is being completed or finished, or in actions that were being cpompleted or will be completed at a certain time. : Example; I am finishing going, I was finishing going, I will be finishing going Correlatives Personal Pronouns In relation to the above, just take note of the Affixes. Affixes and Their Meanings There are many affixes in Qâêr however here is a basic list of the ones that won't be mentioned anywhere else on this page. Negation Verb negation is done by adding the prefix nao- ''to any particular verb one wishes to negate. Double negation is done by adding the prefix ''nelnao- ''to any verbs. The negation of adjectives is done also in a similiar fashion by adding the negation prefix ''nao-'' to the adjective thus obtaining results such as ''Happy - '''Un'happy'' Derivation All the following are Prefixes. Adjective > Adverb - er(ê) Example; Quick > Quickly Verb > Noun - ho(l) Example; To Write > Writer (This is a concrete Noun) Adjective > Noun en(o) Example; Happy > Happiness (This is an abstract noun) Adjective > Adverb ce(n) Example; Happy > Happily Noun > Verb co(l) Exmple; Glory > Glorify Noun > Adjective ar(o) Exmple; Recreation > Recreational Adjective > Noun or(o) Example; Slow > Slowness Transitive Verbs > Intransitive Verbs -- Ablaut o/ô/ó Intransitive Verbs > Transitive Verbs -- Ablaut i/î/í Adjectives > Transitive Verbs -- h(a) Example; Rich > Enrich Nouns > Transitive Verbs -- h(ê)'' Example; Rapture > Enrapture'' Verb Affixes In this section the different affixes that relate solely to verbs will be discussed. The Inchoative Verb (Inceptive Verb) This verb conveys the process of beginning or becoming. The inceptive prefix which is added onto verbs to represent the start or beginning of that particular action. This therefore negates verbs such as 'to start' 'pr ''to begin'. The prefix to create the Inceptive Verb is - pá The Catenative Verb A Catenative Verb is a verb which takes other verbs as objects, Exmple; We '''promised' to try practicing tennis more often.'' Here in the aboce example the verb ''''promised' is catenative and takes the verbs '''"to try" (Infintive Form) and "practicing" (Gerund Form) as its objects. In English catenative verbs are not marked however in Qâêr a verb has to be inflected with the Catenative suffix to become a Catenative Verb. The suffix to change verbs to Catenative form is - âr Control Verbs Sentence Structure Particle* + Negater* + Verb + Adverb + Determiner* + Noun Erg + Adjective + Noun Abs + Adjective + Preposition* + Noun* + Adjective* + Conjunction* * = If Applicable Phrase Structure - VP NP PP = SVO (Note – PP = NP + P) Qâêr has no adjectives and this means that all words that would normally be used as adjectives take the place of verbs. To get Adv.’s and Adj.’s these are then derived from Verbs and are distinguished by affixes. Example ‘Beautiful She’ = She is beautiful ‘Run erêBeautiful She’ = She runs beautifully ‘She xoRun enoBeautiful’ = She is a beautiful runner. These prefixes are er(ê) which is placed onto verbs to make them Adverbs, en(o) which is placed onto verbs to make them Adjectives and finally, xo(l) which is placed on Verbs to derive their Noun counterparts, e.g. To Cycle – A Cyclist, To Run – A Runner e.c.t Determiner – this, that, two five, my, his, their, some, many Adjectives – fat, ugly, red Noun – mother, mountain, boat, tree Adverbs – quickly, furiously, sleepily, tauntingly Verbs – jumped, ran, swim Noun – house, land, plan Prepositional Phrase or Word – through, over, on Example – ‘His fat mother hilariously ran through the house.’ Distinctions Nouns - Difference between plural and singular - Un/Defined - Possessiveness Personal Pronouns - Number ( I vs. We) - ‘We’ has two forms, inclusive and exclusive of you - Animacy (one for living and non-living) - No distinction between he and she or in the third person Possessive Verbs - Comparative - ‘More’ Prefix - Mood - Voice - Aspect/Tense - Agreement Declension Table for Nouns Singular Cases Living Non Living Defined Undefined Defined Undefined Ergative o a e i Absolutive jo ja re ri Genitive jô jâ rê rî Possessive or(â) ar(â) er(o) ir(o) Inalienable Possessive ro(l) ra(l) me(n) mi(n) Partitive ôl(e) ôl(o) el(e) il(o) Dative seo(n) sao(n) sei(n) sae(n) Locative ler(o) ler(a) ler(e) ler(i) Abessive res(o) sâs(o) lei(t) le(o) Instrumental qel(o) qâs(e) mre(l) âs(e) Equative je(s) rôn(á) fjo fja Plural Cases Living Non Living Defined Undefined Defined Undefined Ergative ô â ê î Absolutive jó já ró rí Genitive jô jâ rê rî Possessive om(â) am(â) em(o) ím(o) Inalienable Possessive mô(l) mâ(l) me(l) mi(l) Partitive ól(e) ól(a) êl(e) îl(o) Dative reo(n) rao(n) rei(n) rae(n) Locative len(o) len(a) len(e) len(í) Abessive rôs(o) sâs(a) lê(t) ale(o) Instrumental qêl(o) qâs(a) nra(l) ês(a) Equative jê(s) jî(s) fjê vátâ(l) Note – Vocative case is the only case that is added as a suffix whereas the others are prefixes. The way vocative case works is that it cuts the last two letters off and then the suffix then added. Vocative case – Inflects on the person’s name regardless of gender. The inflection is - (t)ó Example – Name – Brutus Vocative Case - Brutó Verb Agreement Verbs have 6 inflections for agreement. These consist of; {Agent Living -- Agent Non-Living} & Object Living -- Subject & Object Non-Living (Subject Living/Object Non-Living -- Subject Non-Living/Object Living) The verb will have an Infix to reflect these differences between the Agent, Subject, and Object. Cases Note – See Declension Table for Nouns Qâêr works in the Ergative – Absolutive Case. Note – Ergative/Absolutive - agent of transitive is alone while intransitive subject and transitive object is the same case. – Transitive verbs require both a direct object and one or more objects while Intransitive verbs do not take an object and has only one argument (its subject) and has a valency of one. This means that the Agent is separate from the Subject and the Object and the Subject and the Object are combined. For example, I killed her. She killed me. Me slept. Where I is the agent and Me is the subject and object. In English and other Indo-European languages it is Nominative – Accusative which means the Agent and Subject are the same with the Object being different. For example in English it would be I killed her. She killed me. I slept. (Erg) Ergative case – Agent (Abs) Absolutive Case – Subject or Direct Object (Dat) Dative Case – Indirect Object (He gave Mary Ten Dollars) OR To sth/sbdy (He gave it to Mary) (Gen) Genitive Case – Description Man of honor OR Origin Men of Rome (Part.) Partitive – Part from/of a group of sth. Wheel of cheese Group of men (Poss.) Possessive my briefcase (alienable – able to be taken away) (In. Poss.) Inalienable Possessive John’s nose (inalienable – unable (without surgery) to be taken away) (Voc) Vocative – ‘Et tu, Brute?’ – Brute (here in Latin) is vocative of Brutus (Loc) Locative – The action done by sth/sbdy (i.e. the mouse was eaten by the cat) (Abe) Abessive – Lack of sth. - less in Eng. (Ins.) Instrumental – Instrument ‘I wrote a note with a pen’ (Equ) Equative – Likeness ‘He runs like a girl Affixes and What They Mean Past and Future Tense (Note – For present tense the words are just left as they are without these prefixes attached). To distinguish between past and future tense two prefixes are added onto the beginning of the word. These prefixes are nî and nê. The prefix nî is for future tense (derived from Nîqêtir meaning ‘Never’ in Fáriân) and the prefix nê is for past tense (derived from Nêbinôr meaning ‘History’ in Fáriân). Negating The particle Nêl is attached to the beginning of the verb to negate the action. This word is derived from the Fárean word Nelân meaning never. Double Negative Nêlnao and is simply added before the verb. Comparative Comparative is measured and inflected in the verb. There are three stages of comparative with one superlative. Verb Types In Draft still Monotransitive, Ditransitive, Transitive, Intransitive, Modal Particle, Static/Dynamic, Infinitive Verb, and Catenative Verb Infinitive The ‘to’ infinitive used in infinitive verbs (i.e. I like to jump) will be inflected as a suffix on verbs in Qâêr, one of only 2 suffixes present in the entire language, also one from only three affixes breaking the rule of ‘all affixes being prefixes in Qâêr’. However with every NatLang there are exceptions and this is one of them (only being three in the entire Qâêr language). How it works is that its inflected with the suffix – (p)ín example – Lóto (verb ‘move’) = Lótopín (‘to move’) Catenative The Catenative verb form is used when a verb is using other verbs or gerunds as objects in a sentence. An example being – ‘We promised to agree to try practicing playing tennis more often.’ Note however that not all verbs can be Catenative; however when a verb is being used as a catenative verb is takes the other only suffix in Qâêr which is –âr. So in the above sentence the verb promised, here in the past form and in the catenative form, note that verbs are not always in catenative from and not all can be catenative, though it would be inflected like this in Qâêr; (nê + promised + âr = nêpromiseâr) – Note that the English word promise was used here. Voice Active Middle Passive Voices are prefixes that are attached in front of the verb to indicate the voice affecting the noun in the ergative case, or when lacking one then in the absolutive case. Examples are in English and Qâêr. English – He gave Mary Ten Dollars Qâêr – (Simple Past)Give (Erg)He (Abs)Mary Ten (Dat)Dollars English – He has given Ten Dollars to Mary Qâêr – (Active)Give (Erg)He Ten (Abs)Dollars (Dat)Mary English – Mary was given Ten Dollars by Him Qâêr – (Passive)Give (Abs)Mary Ten (Dat)Dollars (Loc)Him English – He washes himself with the soap. Qâêr – (Middle)Washes He (Ins)(The)Soap Manner Time Place Setout used – SOV example in Qâêr – ‘(fut.)ride (Erg)I mine (Abs)horse today (Dat)(the)shop’ English – ‘I will ride my horse to the shop today.’ Mood and Modality Moods Chosen: Indicative (Realis) Optative Subjunctive Speculative Potential Jussive (Cohortative in 1st Person) Dubative Conditional Hypothetical Imperative Interrogative (Particle) Deliberative (Relate to Interrogative) Precative (Relate to Interrogative) Mood attaches to verbs as a prefix. For the Interrogative mood, the structure will follow closely to that of the Japanese. This means that a particle will be used and placed at the beginning of the sentence and will be used to transform sentences into questions. The Precative and Deliberative mood will relate here by inflecting on this particle, and only on this particle, thus making the question into a request or ‘Ought to be done question’. This particle will be ‘lê’ and be placed before all other words in the sentence. Interrogative Words The interrogative particle lê will be inflected with prefixes and these will phrase interrogative words such as what, where e.c.t. The interrogative particle without one of these prefixes will just be turned into a normal question. What = qâlo + lê – qâlolê Where = qin + lê – qinlê When = qeose + lê – qeoselê Who = qeno + lê – qenolê Why = qî + lê – qîlê How = qâna + lê – qânalê How Much = sjonâ + lê – sjonâlê Sjonâ is derived from the Fáriân word Sjinolâme which means ‘to barter’. Note – when using any of these interrogative words for linking words however, just the prefix is used, not the prefix with the particle. In the example sentence – ‘John knows where the shop is.’ would be ‘Know John qin shop.’ =Dictionary= =Examples= The Number System Basic Numbers The Qâêr number system is similiar to the English or German one, in that the system is based of the nuumber ten. The basic numbers from 0-10 are as follows; 0 - âs 1 - onno 2 - sont 3 - qes 4 - loto 5 - ros 6 - mello 7 - seles 8 - opo 9 - nesso 10 - kâros Teen Numbers With the numbers 11-19 however there is a different pattern involved; 11 - kârosonno 12 - kârosont 13 - kâroqes 14 - kârosloto 15 - kârosros 16 - kârosmello 17 - kâroseles 18 - kârosopo 19 - kârosnesso In relation the two numbers 13, the basic sonsonant rules apply, they state that no other consonant can come before or after the consonants Q''' or '''Hw (the number three being Qes) which is the reason why the '-s' from kâros drops off in the number thirteen. Regarding the numbers 12 and 17 (kârosont and kâroseles repsectively) there is only one s', (the numbers being: ''kâros + sont = kârosont / kâros + seles = kâroseles respectively) because in the number system the doubling of consonants when joining numbers is forbidden and over time with degredation the sound is reduced to one '''s instead of two s''''s anyway (two '''s's having a different pronounciation than a single s). Other Numbers before 100 Sentences fênos lân qâlârellâ lostêr seonaresímá norâ nîtêr lân rejaresímá qânorâ nîtêr lân rejaresímá assó eon sontólá jodâcofîn jofâjenêm Category:Languages